Copyright is not averse to new technologies. Its history is intrinsically linked to technological development. At each stage, revisions, adjustments, and adaptations to the existing organizational and legal structure are necessary and ideally preceded by wide-ranging and informed debate. The same holds true for Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. And the interaction between copyright and AI…
In Equisafety Ltd v Woof Wear Ltd (Equisaftey) Ian Karat sitting as a Judge in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) rejected the Claimant’s copyright infringement claim in respect of various equestrian garments because the garments did not qualify as works of artistic craftsmanship under s.4 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA). …
In its latest opinion, the European Copyright Society has reviewed the German Federal Court of Justice’s (BGH) referral in the Pelham II (a.k.a. Metall auf Metall) case. Although the beginning of the legal dispute dates back to 1999, a quarter century seemed to be not enough to answer all possible questions surrounding the sampling of a…
Just seven weeks after the release of the AG’s Opinion the Kwantum v. Vitra case was decided by the European Court. For Dutch background and early criticism, see my earlier blog. The main question asked to the Court was whether a Member State may unilaterally apply the Berne Convention’s rule of material reciprocity (Article 2(7)…
Code as a literary work Following lengthy discussion in the 1970s and 1980s, by 1991 in the EU and 1994 at the WTO level, the legal status of computer programs was a settled matter: software was to be treated under copyright as a literary work. Source code and object code are protected by copyright. As…
Once again, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will be asked to provide clarity on the concept of “communication to the public” as laid down in article 3 of the 2001 Copyright in the Information Society Directive (InfoSoc Directive). On 20 September 2024, the Dutch Supreme Court expressed its intention to refer…
The German Regional Court (Landgericht) of Hamburg handed down its judgment in the LAION case on 27 September 2024 (file no. 310 O 227/23, published in German here). The key points of the decision are as follows: The reproduction of works for the purpose of creating URL lists that can be used for artificial…
The European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA) has for many years supported the move away from proprietary models of scholarly publishing towards Open Access (OA).[1] ALLEA, therefore, welcomes the recognition in the laws of an increasing number of European countries of so-called ‘Secondary Publication Rights’ (SPRs) that allow publicly funded researchers to…
The Robber Hotzenplotz is the title of a book series for children, written by Ottfried Preußler. The figure of robber Hotzenplotz is characterized on the book cover by a huge black hat, a red band and a feather. A political party incorporated the face of the Austrian city’s mayor into the drawing of robber…
On 11 September 2024, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) had to decide on the question of whether photos or videos shared online featuring in their background a photo wallpaper protected by copyright are lawful under an implied license, or if an express authorization of such reproductions is required. In three decisions of that…
